Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia on Friday made it clear that it would be “impossible” to achieve a 10-crore taxpayer base in the current economic milieu, and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advice to taxmen should not be seen as a “target”.

There is, however, a need on part of the revenue department to improve the tax-GDP ratio and widen the tax base, Adhia told newspersons at the end of the two-day Annual Conference of Tax Administrators here.

Adhia’s remarks are significant as it came a day after Modi urged taxmen to aspire to expand the taxpayer base to 10 crore from the current 5.4 crore, stating that the scope existed to widen the tax base given that nearly 10 crore households may be having non-agricultural incomes.

The Revenue Secretary highlighted that several of the 10 crore non-agriculture income households may live below the poverty line, and this has to be factored into the calculation.

Adhia said the conference had a special session on black money, at which various issues related to tackling the menace were discussed. He, however, did not disclose the strategies the government proposed to adopt to deal with the issue.

The Revenue Secretary also expressed confidence that the Centre would be able to achieve the revenue targets for the current fiscal.

Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Atulesh Jindal said the Income-Tax Department will in the next few weeks roll out e-nivaran, a comprehensive grievance redress platform for the benefit of taxpayers.

“It will initially be rolled out on a pilot basis; the two-day conference discussed the modalities of this upcoming taxpayer-friendly facility,” he added.

Jindal also said the CBDT would place increased emphasis this year on broadening the non-filers management system (NMS) so that a more robust database is created and the tax base is expanded.

Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Chairman Najib Shah said the conference focussed on strategies to achieve “enhanced revenue targets” and the gaps that need to be plugged.

Shah also said that the IT preparedness of the CBEC to meet the requirement of GST (Goods and Services Tax) implementation was reviewed.

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